October 2018, arsenal cinema

70 mm: PHANTOM THREAD

PHANTOM THREAD, 2017

As part of our loose series of 70mm projections, we present Paul Thomas Anderson’s most recent film PHANTOM THREAD (USA/UK 2017) in analogue grand format. In the 1950s, fashion designer Reynolds Woodcock (Daniel Day-Lewis) brings young waitress Alma (Vicky Krieps) back from a holiday in Switzerland to his haute couture stronghold in London, where she is supposed to be at once an enchanting ornament and his new muse, but increasingly starts asserting her own position in the house. Anderson, who was also responsible for the cinematography, was inspired by the films of Powell and Pressburger, David Lean’s Brief Encounter and Hitchcock’s Rebecca. “The influence of these films can felt in every scene: like Powell und Pressburger, he condenses elegance into a differentiated character study; like David Lean, he distills a complicated relationship into an intimate chamber drama, and like Hitchcock, he garnishes the whole thing with a mysterious sense of menace.” (Franz Everschor) (2. & 7.10.)